


dust of snow

by More_familiar_wilds



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Broken Bones, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:48:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28820991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/More_familiar_wilds/pseuds/More_familiar_wilds
Summary: “Listen to me,” she bit out, “I can only do it once...and I don't know how long I can hold it open.”Yennefer's fingers intertwined with his and squeezed until it was painful.“Don't fall behind, bard. It could cut you in half if closes on you before you're through.”“Pleasant,” he gasped.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 98





	dust of snow

**Author's Note:**

> Another Yennefer and Jaskier escape-from-prison fic! Playing hard and fast with magic and dimertium and other things in the fandom I don’t know anything about...all for the sake of the whump. Forgive me for the errors and please suspend your disbelief. :)  
> Title relentlessly stolen from a Robert Frost poem of the same name. 
> 
> TW for blood, broken bones and swearing.
> 
> Cross posted from my Tumblr. If you want, you can check it out [ here ](https://ahhhhhhdonna.tumblr.com/)

“Here.”

Yennefer stopped their running and Jaskier was grateful to stop; he was wheezing, his panting tinged with a whistling that didn't bode well for his plans to _not die_ today. He had his arm wrapped around his rib cage, willing the bones to stay in place, to stop screaming at him at the abuse. 

Through blurry eyes, he could see a smear of blood on Yennefer's forehead from where she had pushed aside her hair... Her wounds must have reopened in the chaos of their escape, badly stitched as they were. But she didn't appear to holding her insides together by sheer force of will, so he wisely decided not to mention it.

“Listen to me,” she bit out, “I can only do it once...and I don't know how long I can hold it open.”

Yennefer's fingers intertwined with his and squeezed until it was painful. 

“Don't fall behind, bard. It could cut you in half if closes on you before you're through.”

“Pleasant,” he gasped, just as she raised the one hand that was free from her dimeritium cuff and she _screamed_ , so piercing and so close that he shuddered and ducked. Her grip tightened even as he pulled away. 

A hole ripped open in the air in front of them, it's edges ragged and undulating, and he gaped, the wind from it whipping his hair. 

“ _Go_ ,” she shrieked and yanked him through the portal along with her- through whooshing, vibrating, spinning _nothingness_ \- before they burst forward into hard, cold snow.

Jaskier moaned and retched, falling onto his hands and knees. Pain exploded through his mid-section and his vision greyed as he fought to get his stomach back under control. Freezing wind bit his face, tore through his ripped chemise, stealing what little breath he had left. And oh...Oh, wasn't that just like her. To promise a daring escape from their captors – _someplace safe,_ she'd snapped when he'd dared to ask, _shut up, Jaskier, keep moving, Jaskier –_ and then to drop them in the middle of some frozen hellscape that he was _not_ properly dressed for. Not that she was dressed for it, either. But sorceresses probably had some stupid spell that kept them from getting cold.

“Yennefer, where in...the fuck...are we?”

When she didn't immediately provide a snide response, he turned and saw why.

The mage was lying beside him, crumpled, her ebony hair blown over her face. The arm still trapped in it's dimeritium shackle was outstretched beside her and he saw with shock that veins of inky black zig-zagged from her wrist, stretching down towards her elbow and up towards her palm. It looked hideous and _painful_ and he swallowed, reaching for her.

“Yen.”

With shaking fingers, he slid her hair back. Blood was dribbling from her nose. He remembered the sound she'd made when she opened the portal, the scream as though she was ripping out a part of herself. Gods, maybe she was. He shook her, gently at first and then harder, suddenly deeply frightened and painfully aware of how alone he was.

“Yen, wake up! Yennefer!”

She didn't stir. Jaskier sat back on his haunches, tucking his hands into his arm-pits for warmth. _Someplace safe_ , she'd said. He squinted and tried to take in their surroundings through the veil of wind-blown snow. In the distance, a tree line, just dark shapes beyond all the white.

If he could get to the trees, maybe he could arrange some sort of shelter for them, to get them out of the worst of it. Wait until Yennefer woke up again. _If she woke up again_ , his brain supplied, unwelcome.

He looked down at her, pale and terribly still in the snow.

“Alright,” he said, “Alright, you... You inconsiderate witch...Don't get left behind, yourself.”

He crouched beside her and, before he could change his mind, gathered her up in his arms and tried to stand in one fluid motion. A rough cry left his mouth; he went down hard on one knee but, by the Gods, he didn't drop her. He had carried a few fair partners in his time, usually to a conveniently located mattress, but never after his ribs had been kicked in by a soldier's boot or trudging through a foot of hard packed snow. Tears sprang to his eyes and he let them come. Gritting his teeth against another shout, he heaved back up to his feet. The bones in his side ground together but he staggered forward, carrying Yennefer like some nightmarish version of a bridegroom. 

***

He groaned and coughed and carried on, pausing every so often to catch his breath, to readjust. He couldn't feel his hands anymore and his grip on Yen kept sliding. His tears had frozen to his face and the snow was biting away at his eyes. He had just fallen to his knees for the tenth time in as many minutes when he realized there were figures emerging from the blowing white sheet in front of him, three tall figures in whipping hooded black cloaks, descending quickly.

Fear bloomed deep within him. He tightened his grip on the woman in his arms and whimpered.

_Someplace safe,_ she'd said. And yet here they were. Surrounded. Jaskier had no strength left to carry her, to run. He threw himself over the mage as the crunching boots came ever closer.

“Don't touch... her, I'm...warning...you,” he gasped out, but hands were already grasping him, prying him off. He fought blindly, feeling the pain in his chest swell until blood burst from between his lips, spattering the snow.

“Leave off him!”

That voice. Jaskier stilled suddenly, and looked down dazedly at the man before him... down in the snow, cradling the wounded mage in his arms. Silver hair spilled from beneath the black hood, gold eyes were alight with shocked concern.

“I'm only trying to help him, wolf, he's in rough shape,” the man holding him grumbled but he let go.

Jaskier wheezed, staring, and when Geralt- it was Geralt, gods, it was Geralt!- opened up the arm not clutching Yennefer to his chest, Jaskier scrambled for him, tucked his face into his shoulder, sobbing breathlessly when Geralt's hand pressed iron hard against the back of his neck.

“...I thought you were dead,” Geralt said with wonder. “I thought you were both dead.”

Then the witcher, believed by many to have no emotions to speak of, threw back his head and made a sound somewhere between laughing and crying. It was a desperate sound that Jaskier had not in twenty years heard him make and now his mighty frame shook with it, as his arms tightened around them both.

“Your mage needs help, Geralt,” the third man said, stepping forward, and gently taking Jaskier's shoulder. “The bard, too. They're half dead. We need to get them to the keep.”

Soul-deep exhausted and coughing troublesome blood over his knuckles, Jaskier was barely lifted his feet when-

_Eskel, catch him! He's-_

-the world at last went dark and, blessedly, pain free.

***

The crackling of a fire nearby roused him, the warmth of a heavy fur met his aching finger tips instead of the hard crust of snow. His mouth tasted horrible and metallic, but when he drew an experimental breath, his chest expanded easily, without the shriek of grating pain.

Decidedly better.

He slowly opened his eyes. Yennefer of Vengerberg was resting beside him, glaring. She looked tired and angry and completely fearsome, as usual. And Jaskier would have been more afraid, maybe, if they weren't side by side in the same bed and buried to the nose under the same large fur.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he said, gesturing to the bed. For all his body told him he was healed, his voice was a dry, ugly rasp. He brought up a hand to rub his throat.

“You fool,” Yennefer said, seething. “You absolute fucking fool.”

“W-what did I...?” He cleared his throat, a bit hurt. This was certainly not what he expected. Although honestly, he had expected entirely to expire beside her in the snow and never wake up again but... here they were. Wherever that was.

“Where are we?”

“Geralt's chamber,” she said, “Kaer Morhen. No thanks to you, bard.”

_-someplace safe-_

“Kaer Morhen?” Jaskier murmured, awed. He turned his gaze about the room, drinking in the sparse furnishings of Geralt's most private life. It was somehow less and more than he'd expected, all at once.

“I portaled us as close to Geralt as I could. You needed to only wait for help to arrive,” Yennefer said. “And what did you do? Wandered off in the wrong direction like an absolute fucking-”

“-fool, yes, yes. I heard you the first time,” he cut in, sputtering, “Well. Well, unlike some immortal magic people I know, I can't read thoughts, Yennefer. If that was the plan, you could've, I don't know, shared it?” 

She scoffed but didn't contradict him. 

“..for all I knew, you'd taken us to the ends of the earth,” he continued, “And I couldn't wake you! I wasn't about to let you... I wasn't going to let you freeze to death, no matter how unlikable you are.”

“Well, your _noble,_ and entirely _useless,_ act of chivalry nearly cost you your life, bard,” she spat, “Your broken rib splintered and pierced your insides. It took another store of energy I didn't have to spare to save your life. Again.”

He grimaced and gingerly touched his chest, trying to remember. Beside him, Yen huffed and turned onto her back, tugging the fur more to her side in frustration. 

He focused on that flash of Yennefer's wrist. The cuff was gone but the flesh was still rubbed raw and faintly etched with those horrible black lines. He reached for her for a better look, then stopped short, thinking better of it. He'd kept his fingers this long, after all... he rather liked them, thanks very much.

“Your arm,” he said, “It was...it looks...Is it better?”

She hummed and lifted the limb in question, looking it over.

“The dimeritium was poisoning me,” she said, “it reacted very... badly to opening the portal. Once the cuff was removed, I began to heal.”

“Does, um. Does it hurt?”

Her eyes flashed at him, dangerous, and she tucked her arm back under the furs.

“Pain doesn't bother me the way it would you.”

Jaskier swallowed. He fiddled with the edge of the fur drawn over his chest for a few moments before he opened his mouth again.

“I. I, uh. Thank you,” he said, uncharacteristically meek. “For saving our lives. My life. Twice.”

Yennefer closed her eyes and sighed, endlessly put upon. Her perfect lips turned up at the corners.

“...Lambert did say you fought him like a feral kitten when he tried to pull you away from me,” she said, idly. “I suppose that's somewhat brave... if embarrassingly ineffective.”

“A feral...!?” Jaskier tucked lower under the fur, ears growing hot. “Gratitude retracted, Yennefer, I retract all my thanks!...Wait. Did you just...? You think I'm...”

When he looked at her, Yennefer was pretending to be asleep, her lips still caught in that hint of a smile. 


End file.
